Other than running across his name here and there, and some very brief sketches in works about his contemporaries, I had little knowledge of William Halsted coming in to this fine, but flawed biography.
Virtually all of us need to say a silent "thank you" to Halsted. Without the innovations he painstakingly thought and practiced through, implemented, and trained others to follow, a lot of us, and a lot of our loved-ones, wouldn't be alive right now. Halsted and his colleagues at the then-newly-created Johns Hopkins genuinely, and for the most part literally, brought medicine into the 20th Century. The advancement of medicine between, say 1890 and 1920 is breathtaking. And Halsted was at the forefront, alongside Ostler and preceding Cushing. (Both, by the way, subjects of wonderful biographies by Michael Bliss, both highly recommended and both readily available:
William Osler: A Life in Medicine
;
Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery
.)
Halsted provides a challenge to the biographer: He was reticent and secretive. He shunned publicity. His largest body of personal correspondence was addressed to his wife, who's sister destroyed all of his letters after his wife's death. His colleagues mostly honored his privacy and, in most cases, didn't know much about the private man themselves. What Imber has done is really kind of amazing considering the lack of primary material: He has presented us with a surprisingly full portrait, all things considered. To fill in some of the unavoidable void, he creates a deep-focused backdrop Halsted's contemporaries and times.
While it would be nice to have a clearer picture of exactly how Halsted's addictions affected his personal and professional lives, not even most of his colleagues were unaware of the addiction and/or the extent of his usage. Imber presents what is known, but wisely avoids either speculation or damnation. Some enigmas will just have to stay enigmas.
The only real weakness here, as far as I'm concerned, is Imber's decision to organize the books by topic. This is not necessarily a problem, but in this case it results in a good-deal of time-jumping, backward and forward and I would periodically find myself confused when beginning a new chapter and suddenly finding myself several years in the past. While I was generally able to get my bearings pretty quickly, there were a number of times when I was confused for several pages before realizing, "oh, it's 1902 again," or some such. Imber covers a lot of ground here, in terms of medical and social history and the persons involved and so I can appreciate the decision, but a few marking posts here and there would have helped.
Unlike a couple of other reviewers, I did not find the medical terminology bothersome and Imber does a good job of giving a quick thumbnail for most of the terms and procedures his audience are likely to stumble over. He also provides modern terminology for conditions and procedures now known by different terms. That was handy.
In all, a very good read. I learned a great deal - both about Halsted himself, and his place in the fascinating world of medical history. And as someone who has gone under the knife on a few occasions: Thank you, Doctor Halsted. I'm glad to be alive.
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Top reviews from other countries
Lamboozler (Simon Lammy)
If You Care About Surgery, Read This Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 12, 2014
Dr Santosh Pai. Manipal
who doesn't know Halsted
Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on February 8, 2019
